Swimming pool lights: your options

Swimming pool lights are wonderful as a feature for night swimming, but they’re also important as a safety feature. Unless there’s absolutely no chance of a child or inattentive person ever wandering near your pool, some illumination around the pool would be helpful. It also transforms a dark pool area from the perfect sort of place for a burglar to stage a crime into a lit area that prevents anyone from getting near the house without being seen.

Choosing swimming pool lights

You can pretty much spend as much or as little as you like on pool lights. Options range from super-fancy to simple-but-effective. You can get lights installed inside the pool, under the water, which is really neat. You can also just buy some simple garden path solar lights that store up energy all day long, then shine at night, and put them around the pool perimeter.

Prices may surprise you: the floating solar lights pictured here cost under $10, use solar energy for power, and change color periodically (seven different colors in all) while they float in your pool. You can also set them on a table while you’re chatting or eating.

There are halogen bulb nightlights for above-ground pools for about $35, and rechargeable floating LED lights that sit on the water in any pool for about $90. You can also spend a bit more than that, but there’s no reason to.

Another option, of course, is regular outdoor lighting. If your pool is close to your house, you could just install an efficient outdoor light on your home and turn it on every night, or set up a timer for it.

I think my favorite option is the very simple, very modestly priced garden path lights that come in sets of 6 for about $70. During the day, they store up solar energy in cells, and then they come on at night and shine for up to eight hours.

No related posts.